Monday, June 3, 2013

I don’t make a lot of Indian food on this blog, but I do
borrow a lot of techniques inspired by that cuisine. Things like toasting
spices in fat for stews, marinating meat in yogurt, and slashing chicken down
to the bone, as I did with these sweet, hot mustard thighs.

I know it’s a bit controversial, since some say you lose
moisture, but any technique that's been practiced for a thousands years is okay
by me. I think it helps permeate the chicken with the sweet, hot mustard
marinade, as well as gives the final product some fairly cool “racing stripes.”

As I mention, if you insist on using boneless-skinless
thighs, this will still work, but it is really is a recipe where the bone is
key. You may have heard the expression, “the closer the bone, the sweeter the
meat,” and it’s so true. There are many ingredients you can substitute for, but
bones aren’t really one of them.

Imagine a chef boning out a rack of ribs before barbecuing
them, so that they’re easier to eat? …actually, don’t imagine that, but I think
you get the point. Anyway, I hope you try this very easy and delicious sweet,
hot mustard chicken thigh recipe soon. Enjoy!

71 comments:

Hey CJ, glad you're back and hope everything is well. You made me smile with the raining men comment, and laugh at the embarrassing moment of perhaps caressing the chicken a bit too much when someone enters the room. Thanks for that. My girlfriend's taking a nap here, and you can't tell her I said this because it would be weird, but outside of perhaps my brothers, father and nephews, I've never told another man I missed him. Glad you're back. And I asked you once if you can make the perfect bread stick, or Chateaubriand would be cool. Ciao from SA.

Thighs are the best part of the Chicken. You can abuse them quite a bit, yet they won't dry out or over cook. Plus, they re-heat better than any other piece. I'm a breast man, but not when it comes to chicken.

From the other comments I am happy to hear family is doing better... but I also took a hiatus from your site due to some pesky Dr asking me to lose a few pounds (what does he know anyways?) and my obsession with your recipes doesn't allow me to just window shop..if I see I must try it out! Anyways I got in the mood for fried chicken (as I planned to totally cheat on my diet)and low and behold I came across this recipe instead. I had to try it out and man oh man I am so glad I did! My 9 year old asked for seconds and my fiance' who hates eating close to the bone couldn't help herself. Very delicious chicken and I only marinated for 4 hours (again I thought I was frying chicken tonight) but can only imagine what an overnight soak would do! I paired it with some rainbow Swiss chard that I boiled briefly, then got a saute' pan going with one diced shallot and diced ham. Threw the chard in there mixed it around it it was time to eat! Awesome recipe! I will be back on a regular basis because just like this I know there are healthy recipes on here...just have to dig a bit! :^)

Thanks for this recipe. I'm always on the look out for quick, easy and reasonably healthy recipes for week day cooking. I really enjoy your humour and recipes[just wish you used metric measures] Julie from down under.

Chef John,Thank you for another great recipe! I buy the 10 pound bags of leg quarters. This recipe is great for the thighs and I use your peanut butter and pepper jelly recipe on the drumsticks. yeah, that other recipe is so great too that you really need to do it on drumsticks instead of wings. LOL! My husband and son prefer that one on drumsticks..it's a more meat kinda thing. LOL!

Hi Chef,What could be an alternative for the rice wine vinegar? I cannot use it since it contains alcohol (even though it will evaporate during the cooking process!!). any suggestions for an alternative?thanks

Yes chef John, please tell us how you keep your pans so clean, I clean mine with vinegar and lemon juice but it doesnt work that well, I just started to buy decent kitchen﻿ equipment, because of all this great videos. Ps: On my way to go get the ingredients!

Chef John, I was surprised by your reflection in the bowl, proved that you actually do the ingredient mixing. I would have thought you had a bunch of C school interns doing your bidding, like those French Prima Donna Michelin chefs.

THANK U ! I hate chicken and my family loves it. Thanks to your chicken recipes we can enjoy it together. The rusty chicken was my fav but now it's this one! I loved it and so did the hubby and kids :)

My wife and I made this a couple weekends ago for the family. We too love the rusty chicken recipe, but wanted to try this for a change of pace.

We had planned on baking as shown, but our grocer was out of "whole" thighs, so we used boneless skinless thighs instead, and ended up grilling.

The flavors were great, and entirely kid friendly. The chipotle we have is very hot, so we used about 1/8 tsp and omitted the cayenne, which was perfect for our family. Next time if grilling I will reserve some marinade for basting, but next time we'll hopefully be able to roast in the over per your intent.

Thanks for yet another great recipe Chef John! I tell everyone that will listen about you and Food Wishes!

On a side note, Can you make your facebook account into a facebook BLOG/PAGE instead of a personal account? That way we normal folk could follow your page and get all the wonderfully interesting posts you put up. :) I was hoping you were on Pinterest too but you're not. :(

My boyfriend and I made this last night. We followed the recipe to the tee. It was so delicious! 5 out of 5! The chicken was extremely moist and had a wonderful flavor. Spicy but not too spicy and it surprisingly didn't taste too much like mustard. Chef John I live listening to your voice! My boyfriend and I both agree that you have a very soothing voice. And I love your subtle humor. We both think you're very funny. Keep up the good work!

I'm worried I won't cook them long enough. I bought chicken thighs with the drumstick attached so I just cut the drumsticks off and only used the thighs. I marinated the drumsticks in my own bbq marinade tonight and I gave them about 20 min on 440F and then about 10 min on grill because the skin didn't crisp up even though I put oil on them. But they were undercooked, so I had to put them back in and give them more time. I didn't think they needed that long? Is my oven just not as good? Anyway I really hope it'll work out tomorrow.. Definitely giving the thighs about 45 min tomorrow!

I made this chicken tonight and it was a huge hit! Great recipe!I had a few small potatoes and some carrots I cut in chunks, tossed in a bit of oil, seasoned and I stuck them in there as well just to use them up.I let bake for 45 minutes on 450 and they were perfectly done. They were not extra large thighs but not small ones either..My husband ate 3 thighs!I put in marinade about 10 in the morning, and into the oven about 6. Thighs and sauce were outstanding, as well as the few veggies. (I used 6 large cloves of garlic)

This chicken was perfectly moist and flavorful. I was surprised at how much the sharp vinegar and mustard flavors mellowed during cooking. I made this with oven-roasted potatoes, which worked out perfectly because those also require a very hot oven.

Hi Chef Jon I can cook so much better now thanks to you. I tell everyone I meet about your site. And brag that we eat gourmet all the time. So I have been following you for at least three years and its high time I thanked you. PS can I marinate FASTER out of the frig ? In a hurry.

I've made this chicken probably 8 times in the last two months! Everyone LOVES it and I have friends asking me for the recipe! I recently added chopped golden potatoes with the onions under the chicken and it is so good! The juices from the chicken make the potatoes moist and the high heat caramelizes the sides. Thank you for your amazing recipes!

Learned my lesson - always listen to Chef John! Stubbornly skipped the "onion ring" step and ended up with a burnt mess on the bottom of the pan instead of those lovely pan juices. Oh well, there's always next time!

Just left this in the fridge to marinate overnight. I don't have red wine vinegar, so I used a blend of three parts apple cider vinegar and one part balsamic. I also didn't have chipotle powder, but had whole chipotles and put two in with the marinate through a blender. I forgot to grab garlic at the grocery store earlier (oh the horror!) and so I had to improvise and use garlic powder. I then realized what I used wasn't garlic powder and that it was onion powder, so I then had to also add garlic powder. The marinate tastes good, but given the obvious changes made here it will probably turn out significantly different than the original recipe. Hope it turns out good when I roast it tomorrow :)

I’ve made this a dozen times, substituting slices of red pepper for the onion (I’m allergic), and it has turned out wonderfully. It’s so nice to find a new favourite!

Also, if anyone doesn’t have red wine vinegar in their pantry, just use leftover red wine (or even dry sherry) with a small amount of vinegar for acidity. Red wine vinegar is fairly pricy around here so I don’t always have it on hand and the recipe turns out fine with the substitution.